This is one of my posts from the Recalibration blog. You can see the original post here, and you can check out Recalibration here.
I got into a “Facebook argument” recently. This is something I tend to avoid (simply because social networking sites on the Internet are not the place to look for a decent intellectual discussion), however the person sent me a private message regarding their concern. The message was to say that they were worried about the things I show on my Facebook page. This is not what you might think; apparently they were concerned that I posted a link to an article by a Roman Catholic priest, and that I ‘liked’ the Pope and Mother Theresa of Calcutta. They were certainly gentle in the message, however they were simply unconvincing. This post, though, is not to serve the purpose of bashing this person at all, nor is it to prove that I’m “right” and they’re “wrong”. This is simply to discuss my viewpoint on the entire unfortunate “Protestant or Catholic” situation.
My response to the message can be summed up like this:
1) I have to discern truth and sound doctrine for myself (and even for those who look to me for guidance in the Word), however I have no place to say who’s “in” or who’s “out” in regards to the Church.
2) Your place in the Kingdom is not determined by how solid every last piece of your theology may be. Is there “false doctrine” in the Roman Catholic Church? Sure. But is there “false doctrine” lurking in every corner of my life? To borrow a phrase, “you betcha”. This is not to say that I don’t try to spend every single moment of my life chasing after and trying to understand God. But I’m not ready to attack another person’s theology and tell them they aren’t a part of God’s Kingdom because they’re wrong on some issue (even on some pretty important stuff).
3) So are Catholics and Protestants brothers and sisters in Christ? Yep. There definitely are those who fake their way through the Church for their own reasons, but that’s in every body of believers. Christ had this to say about the situation in Matthew 13:
“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” (Matthew 13.24-30 ESV)
Please know this: I am not arguing for Theological Agnosticism, Relativism, or Skepticism. There are absolute truths we can know about God, things we can learn first and foremost by reading the Scriptures. This is rather an argument against what is essentially Gnosticism, the idea that you are saved through having the right knowledge of God, knowing the right things.
The Christian life is about abiding in Christ. It is a life of love and grace, a life of knowing the Father through the Holy Spirit. We ought to read the Scriptures to abide in and to know God, not simply to be “right” about the things of God.
(One last thing: one of my favorite writers right now is Thomas Merton, who was a Catholic Trappist monk and became a priest in 1949. Merton unfortunately died in 1968, but his work will have a lasting impact on my life.)
I got into a “Facebook argument” recently. This is something I tend to avoid (simply because social networking sites on the Internet are not the place to look for a decent intellectual discussion), however the person sent me a private message regarding their concern. The message was to say that they were worried about the things I show on my Facebook page. This is not what you might think; apparently they were concerned that I posted a link to an article by a Roman Catholic priest, and that I ‘liked’ the Pope and Mother Theresa of Calcutta. They were certainly gentle in the message, however they were simply unconvincing. This post, though, is not to serve the purpose of bashing this person at all, nor is it to prove that I’m “right” and they’re “wrong”. This is simply to discuss my viewpoint on the entire unfortunate “Protestant or Catholic” situation.
My response to the message can be summed up like this:
1) I have to discern truth and sound doctrine for myself (and even for those who look to me for guidance in the Word), however I have no place to say who’s “in” or who’s “out” in regards to the Church.
2) Your place in the Kingdom is not determined by how solid every last piece of your theology may be. Is there “false doctrine” in the Roman Catholic Church? Sure. But is there “false doctrine” lurking in every corner of my life? To borrow a phrase, “you betcha”. This is not to say that I don’t try to spend every single moment of my life chasing after and trying to understand God. But I’m not ready to attack another person’s theology and tell them they aren’t a part of God’s Kingdom because they’re wrong on some issue (even on some pretty important stuff).
3) So are Catholics and Protestants brothers and sisters in Christ? Yep. There definitely are those who fake their way through the Church for their own reasons, but that’s in every body of believers. Christ had this to say about the situation in Matthew 13:
“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” (Matthew 13.24-30 ESV)
Please know this: I am not arguing for Theological Agnosticism, Relativism, or Skepticism. There are absolute truths we can know about God, things we can learn first and foremost by reading the Scriptures. This is rather an argument against what is essentially Gnosticism, the idea that you are saved through having the right knowledge of God, knowing the right things.
The Christian life is about abiding in Christ. It is a life of love and grace, a life of knowing the Father through the Holy Spirit. We ought to read the Scriptures to abide in and to know God, not simply to be “right” about the things of God.
(One last thing: one of my favorite writers right now is Thomas Merton, who was a Catholic Trappist monk and became a priest in 1949. Merton unfortunately died in 1968, but his work will have a lasting impact on my life.)
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